Research

Curators and staff in the Department of Greece and Rome are constantly engaged in research, from fieldwork to investigating, studying and cataloguing the collection.

The British Museum makes a substantial contribution to excavation and fieldwork throughout the world through its own projects or through collaboration with those of other institutions. Staff in the department are currently engaged in excavations in Italy and in Turkey.

Research projects

Curators and staff in the department are involved in a wide range of research projects

Publications

Archaeology in Cyprus

Archaeological investigations over the last 30 years, primarily by Professor E. Peltenburg of the University of Edinburgh, have revealed the long and fascinating history of Kissonerga village, near Paphos in south-western Cyprus, with remains dating back to the first Neolithic settlers on the island (around 8600 BC).

A joint project between the Lemba Archaeological Research Centre, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Manchester, the Manchester Museum, the Archaeological Institute of America and the British Museum, has resulted in the reconstruction of one of the Late Chalcolithic roundhouses discovered at Kissonerga-Mosphilia, dating to the middle of the third millennium BC.

Interpretation panels (in English and Greek) with 3D computer imaging of the house and its contents (designed by M. Dalton) created to be displayed at the site to explain its ancient history to tourists and the local community can be downloaded here:

Ongoing excavations, directed by Dr L. Crewe of the University of Manchester and the Manchester Museum, close to the reconstruction are revealing important remains of an Early–Middle Bronze Age settlement at Kissonerga-Skalia which succeeded the Late Chalcolithic site. Material from the older Lemba and Kissonerga excavations in the British Museum collection is currently being researched by the Cyprus digitisation project.